Name and Nature
by LiesMiranda
Summary: He remembers Regulus. Two years ago. And now James lies dead before him. - In his life, Sirius Black lived through the deaths of two brothers. SB oneshot


**_Name and Nature_**

**Regulus**

Sirius Black drinks to remember. He brings the whiskey to his lips repeatedly as the steam rises from the bathtub, surrounding his figure, clouding the room. Clouding his mind.

When the bottle empties, his right hand moves in a swift motion to refill. Discounting that one repeated effort, he hasn't stirred in hours. He lies in the tub, drinking to remember. With Regulus dead he's allowing himself to relive memories for the first time since he was sixteen.

Regulus is dead.

He didn't think he'd care when a part of his family died, but he supposes in his mind family meant The Blacks. Take away the surname, the name that was practically a title, and Regulus was the only real family he'd ever had.

Though he wonders if he knows the meaning of family.

He should have taken him with him when he ran away. Maybe things would be different. Maybe Regulus wouldn't have become involved with Snape, just to spite his older brother. Maybe he wouldn't have twitched his left arm nervously whenever Sirius was in his sight. Maybe he wouldn't have killed all those Muggles in that pub in Lambeth. Maybe –

But he did.

Sirius wants to remember the Before, not the After. Before Hogwarts, when all he had was his little brother, who was a bit of a stupid cry baby sometimes, but who had treated Sirius like a bearer of light. Regulus had been his best friend and confidant once, when their world was formal dinner tables and the family tree; the family honour. He was the boy who'd asked a nine-year-old Sirius why they weren't allowed to play with the muggle children down the road. The boy who'd made him realise that there was no answer.

Sirius wonders if someone can stay in a bath so long that even their soul gets absorbed by the water.

He slams his knuckles against the side of the tub, wanting to feel some sort of physical pain, vainly hoping that it'll provide some relief from this strange ache that's threatening to swallow him whole. He feels like a husk, and he didn't even know that Regulus was part of the small stuff inside him, barely stopping him from being hollow. The stuff keeping him human.

He moans viciously. He's been running for so long, and his family has still managed to catch up with him. He should have been able to leave behind the agony when he'd jumped out that window, but his bedroom door had opened behind him. Regulus had nodded at him, tossed him a purse of gold, and disappeared silently.

He's always blessed and cursed that moment. Sometimes, when Sirius had had the nightmares, the memory had resurfaced, and he would wake up feeling okay.

Now, he thinks his brother's wide-eyed face is all he'll be able to see each time he closes his eyes.

There's a knock on the bathroom door. The knock has come every hour. This is the eighth, Sirius thinks, and he raps the tub once in reply. He knows that James and Remus have been standing a vigil outside the bathroom for as long as he's been inside. Peter had delivered the news, and had been smart enough to leave when Sirius had flung a knife at the door upon hearing the words. Shooting the messenger is the only way he's ever known how to cope.

He can hear James pacing, and knows that Remus is sitting against the frame of the door, both offering a constant presence for which he'll never find a way to show proper gratitude.

Sirius chokes out a moan and a sob. He should have been constant. He should have stayed.

Somewhere, right now, there is noise so loud that people can't stand it. For Sirius there is only the lapping of the tepid water whenever his body shifts. He doesn't want there to be anything more, because as his mind washes away he can let his memories change. They can tell him that the Black brothers grew up with each other to become the Great Wizards they'd told themselves they would be.

Regulus is, was, just another thing that he's fucked up, and Sirius grabs the whiskey again, relishing in the feeling of the glass between his fingers because he doesn't know if he'll ever find solidarity again. This war is real real real and he doesn't want to, he's never wanted to, but he cares and he feels and there's these dark alleys in his head he can't escape and

Regulus is dead.

* * *

**James**

All Sirius will allow himself to think is _fuck_, he wants a cigarette.

That's what he tells himself, because dread is spreading icy fingertips through him. He tells himself that when he gets to Lily and James's he'll have a smoke to pretend he wasn't panicking. James might join him and Lily will purse her lips and move Harry to the next room, but later she'll sit with them anyway and James will tease that she just can't resist the pair of them, no matter how much they reek of smoke. Things will be normal and they'll laugh at how skittish this war is making them. Peter's mysterious disappearance will be explained away by something trivial like a bout of the 'flu he's ducked to Remus' to fix.

That's what he tells himself, until he gets to Godric's Hollow and the world comes crashing down.

All he can hear is a howling silence. It deafens him, suffocates him. His ears are ringing and he's gasping for air and _no no fuck no oh god merlin no._

The door swings emptily on its hinges and Sirius doesn't have to step beyond it to see James alone on the ground floor, his body crumpled by the steps. Sirius is gagging repeatedly, throwing up nothing but torturous emotion. People say Sirius and James love each other like brothers. Sirius is shuddering because now it's loved and not love. Now everything about James is past and Sirius wants to howl that there was nothing 'like' about it. James Potter had been his brother from the second they'd met, the moment they'd learned that their minds worked as one.

Can a mind still work when its other half is lying dead on the ground?

James is on his back, and a manic laughter consumes Sirius as James' insufferable hair is stirred by the cold October air blowing through the shattered doorway. The man who was never still for a moment is filled with a haunting movement in death.

An arm is stretched away from his collapsed form; helplessly reaching towards something it can no longer touch, or save. James' glasses are askew, and it's through blurred vision that Sirius points his wand at the fractured spectacles.

"_Reparo_," he croaks. He doesn't think he's crying; he just knows he'll never be able to see clearly again.

There are splinters on the landing, and beyond them, a flash of red hair. He doesn't want to see any more than that. Death clings to the building, and he knows he knows he knows what he'll see, knowing knowing knowing that it – that James and Lily and _Harry_ – it's his entire fault.

He was so clever, so cunning. His extreme wit has killed them all.

It's so quiet, so eerily still. October is so cold. Or is it November now? Time will never again have meaning. Sirius is torn between not making a sound to disturb this morbid peace, and setting the house alight just to _feel _something.

There is such a density to this silence, and Sirius has to push it aside just to breathe. Why can't he just learn to stay? Stay in his house, stay by the plan. It's when he leaves that things shatter and tear; it's by leaving that he leaves such chaos in his wake that the deaths of those he loves pile behind him.

He's good at killing. He must be. If this is what he causes without intent, imagine what he can achieve with purpose.

Peter Pettigrew. For once, he can do something right.

He almost takes a step, to tell James how he'll avenge him. He's cackling then, because an hour without James in the world and he's already mad, already totally without sanity.

He remembers two years ago. He remembers Regulus. Then, he shut himself down for days. Now, he's been sparked, and he won't stop ticking until he's fixed things. He's already absorbed the energy his best friend left behind, and he doesn't care that the combination of Potter and Black in one body is undoubtedly fatal. Sirius is already dead.

There is nothing left in the world, and he can't stand the thought of people waking up as the day dawns and the sun rising from the east and setting in the west; he wants to rip himself apart but he doesn't think that there's anything left to pull out. He's dimly aware that he's shuddering and nonsense is falling out of his mouth and he's gasping for air between words he can't stop himself from saying. He's decaying and rotting and that's not going to stop until he's with James again and there's a noise and it's crying and it's upstairs and

Harry is alive.

**A/N **_Credit where credit is due! Small parts of this were inspired by this post: post/67061498336/james-potter-and-sirius-black-headcanons, and also a huge nod to Two Fingers by Jake Bugg. _

_Please review! _


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